Other than these few details, the life of Jeremiah, who was just 13 when he died in Nambé in late November, remains mostly a mystery — including the circumstances of his disappearance, which authorities say went unreported for two months. If he were still alive now, court records show, Jeremiah would be 14.

Family snapshots posted on his mother's Facebook account and a yearbook photo from a Santa Fe school he attended show a round-faced, smiling youth.

Jeremiah didn't say much to Al Martinez, who used to see the boy and his sister playing in the bare yard of their home off N.M. 503 near Nambé.

"He would say 'hi' if he saw me," said Martinez, whose house abuts the property where Jeremiah's family had lived for a year. The boy and his family pretty much kept to themselves, Martinez said.

“This is very gut-wrenching to the point where you go home and ... it's hard to sleep at night just thinking about the abuses this poor child went through.”

Santa Fe County Sheriff Robert Garcia

Authorities recently found what they believe is Jeremiah's small body in a plastic storage bin, buried a few miles down N.M. 503 from his home. They suspect he had been beaten severely by his mother's boyfriend, Thomas Wayne Ferguson, 42, and died in the home shortly afterward. Ferguson, along with Jeremiah's mother, Tracy Ann Peña, 35, and Ferguson's adult son, 19-year-old Jordan Nuñez — who also is identified as Jordan Muñoz — were arrested last week after authorities discovered the remains.

All three are facing charges of child abuse resulting in death and tampering with evidence.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Jeremiah's younger sister told police the boy had been beaten by Ferguson before, sometimes so severely that he had to use a cane or wheelchair. And often, for punishment, the girl said, her brother was forced to sleep in a dog kennel.

At a news conference Tuesday, Santa Fe County Sheriff Robert Garcia called the case "terrifying."

"Although I've seen a lot," Garcia said, "this is very gut-wrenching to the point where you go home and ... it's hard to sleep at night just thinking about the abuses this poor child went through."

District Attorney Marco Serna said he didn't believe Valencia was enrolled in school at the time of his death.

Jeff Gephart, a spokesman for Santa Fe Public Schools, confirmed Jeremiah had attended local schools from 2009-16, most recently Carlos Gilbert Elementary, but hadn't been a student in the district for more than a year.

An office employee at Pojoaque Valley schools, near Jeremiah's home in Nambé, told The New Mexican on Tuesday that the boy had not been enrolled in that district, either, in the past year.

Martinez, who is retired, said he noticed that the kids next door never hustled off to school. And he never saw Peña or Ferguson go to work during the typical commuting hours, he said.

Perhaps a good metaphor for the family's isolation, he said, was the big chain-link fence Ferguson installed to separate the house from the street when the family first moved in.

"I think about that, how little interaction there was with this family," he said. "There were never any other people."

“He loved the trumpet, and he loved to be doing mechanics. He loved to take things apart.”

Rick Tapia, Jeremiah's grandfather

But Martinez remembered two pit bulls, one brown, one brown and white. They had a litter of puppies last summer.

"I would see Jeremiah out playing with the dogs. I think the dogs were his best friends," Martinez said. "Jeremiah was just in love with those dogs."

Rick Tapia, Jeremiah's grandfather who was at one point appointed by the court as a temporary guardian, according to court documents, called the boy an "amazing kid."

"He loved the trumpet, and he loved to be doing mechanics. He loved to take things apart," Tapia said. He declined to comment further.

Other close family members declined to speak at all about the boy.

On Tuesday night, a small pile of votives sat next to the fence at his home on N.M. 503, candles with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe flickering in the cold. Two mylar balloons jumped in the breeze above a small pile of stuffed animals and plastic flowers.

"It's the road that we travel every day. To know that we were passing by month after month and didn't know — it's heartbreaking," Perez said, her voice breaking. A few of her five young children clung to her legs.